Highlighting the obtuse, the slanted and sometimes just plain ignorant writings found in The Gray Lady

Month: October 2016

For 2 weeks Bob Dylan has been silent about his Nobel Prize win for Literature.

And The New York Times has been on a hate parade about it.

Ever since the Swedish Academy announced 2 weeks ago it was awarding Bob Dylan the Nobel Prize for Literature, The New York Times has been tying itself up in politically correct conniption fits.

The Times has been spinning the news in their own way: That Dylan’s silence over the matter somehow shows ungratefulness. Worse, The Times’ implication has for 2 weeks been that the Nobel Prize for Literature rather should go to some unknown (unworthy) who would therefore be thrust into the world’s spotlight to illuminate this or that passing cause to us unlearned masses.

They even published an opinion piece: “Why Bob Dylan Shouldn’t Have Gotten A Nobel”

Read it. It says, in part, the Nobel committee should have given the award to an “underrepresented” group, or for example, an “online” writer.

(Note to Times: These are the types of articles that turn people into Trumpsters.)

You mean, someone irrelevant. Someone who hasn’t changed millions of lives or made countless impacts across all spectrums of peoples and races across the world? Dylan’s music still inspires millions of fans and wannabe musicians.

The Nobel Prize was first awarded over a century ago and was given for a writer’s body of work over their lifetime.

The Nobel is not – as The Times and other Politically Correct Revisionists would have it – an award given to push this year’s favorite cause celebre’.

Anyone – anyone – who knows Dylan’s work knows the great influence books and literature had on him as a lyricist and comprehends how much he deserves this Nobel award – No matter the unconventional, out-of-left-field manner in which it came about.

Anyone who knows Bob Dylan knows the impact his work has had across the world: In politics, film, literature, art, fashion and music.

Organizations like The New York Times with their blindered writers and editorial boards can go back to Youtube or somewhere else and watch that singular event in July 1965 at the Newport Folk Festival when Dylan shocked audiences with his messy, raucous electric performance of “Like A Rolling Stone” and changed the face of rock and roll forever.

That’s what artists do. They shake things up. They do the unexpected. They do NOT conform to the standards that the media or business demands from them. And that it what Bob Dylan has been doing for over 50 years as an artist.

And if The New York Times doesn’t like it, they can write their own protest song.

It is well-known that when the FBI decided to close its case on the Hillary Clinton email server case that there were many within the splintered agency who were left stewing in their juices.

Now those stewed prunes found their revenge. And they did it with headlines using a ridiculously flimsy excuse: A laptop belonging to a former Clinton aide that contains 1000’s of emails. The catch? All those emails have probably already been covered by the FBI’s previous investigation. The FBI made NO effort to check before throwing out their bombshell announcement as if they’ve stumbled onto some secret cache.

We have become used to the FBI’s incompetence, whether it’s their own officers’ criminal corruption or the very real recent revelations that the FBI negotiated with a Congressman over classifying documents “Top Secret” by agreeing to trade this action by assigning more FBI agents to overseas positions.

And now we have FBI Director Comey doing what Russian Dictator Vladamir Putin has been trying to do for months: Sabotage our American election and throw it over to a wannabee Little Dictator Donald Trump.

[Post-Election Update: Trump’s rural voters showed up at the polls. Hillary only had support – and not enough – in the cities. Generally speaking. That said, Bret Baier managed to spread a whopper of a lie late in the campaign reporting the FBI had an active investigation into the Clinton Foundation. Not true. He later came out and said he was wrong.

The damage was done. Another lie by Fox. The problem: Baier, as opposed to Hannity and their other blowhards, is deemed a “newsman” by the network. Yes, they do make distinctions, for those of your who follow these things.]

How desperate is the Fox News spin machine these days?

On the 23rd October Fox News show Bret Baier actually said the reason Donald Trump is getting beat by Hillary Clinton in nearly every national poll is because Trump supporters are afraid to admit to pollsters that they support Trump.

That’s news to us.

It’s also news to pollsters who ensure likely voters give them valid answers. If pollsters don’t get reliable results, they don’t make money – it’s that simple. They are paid to be accurate. They are NOT paid to be advocates one way or the other. (Well, unless you’re working for outliers, fringe groups or a news network that employs personalities who have vested their personal fortunes in the election of Donald Trump. Um hmph -Hannity!

We just finished watching the October 24th 2016 evening broadcast of the PBS Newshour. We were aghast at their slanted coverage against American Sioux Tribes protesting the building of oil pipelines across tribal lands and – most importantly – the planned pipeline under protected waterways that supply vital drinking water to the tribes.

The reporter practically pushed the cause of oil companies and their arguments. No where was there any interview from any Tribal representative. No where did it mention that Bakken oil sludge is the dirtiest, most costliest to process in the world.

Instead, PBS sounded like an 19th Century “Who are these injuns and we can do what we want on their land!” kind of story.

It is sovereign land. When will the United States finally accept the law that granted Native Americans the right to rule over their own land?

To underscore Public Broadcasting’s disgraceful lack of respect for Native Americans and their issues, after a quick dismissal of this massive tribal conflict, PBS spent the next 10 minutes on one of their more favored subjects, Syria, where they managed to ingterview a Syrian about the war for a good 10 minutes.

We are left to assume that the supposed Liberals at PBS care not for the very important issues going on in their back yards with Native Americans.

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When you want to belittle a cause, simply silence the voices of the cause. That is what Judy Woodruff – news editor – and PBS chose to do in this very important sovereign issue on Native American rights. (Note: First Nations is the term used in Canada while in the US Native American is still commonly used. Aboriginal or Indiginous peoples are also generalized terms used.)

It’s important to realize that Warren Buffet is a large advertiser with PBS. Warren Buffet has directly invested $Billions in the oil pipeline in stock buys in pipeline companies and has also increased his $Billions already invested in oil refinery corporation Phillips 66.

A couple months ago a BNSF derailment and subsequent explosion caused massive damage out West – it was covered by all the major news services. PBS made no mention of this major environmental disaster.

The news is that AT&T is ready to buy Time-Warner in an $80 Billion dollar vertical integration deal that is sure to screw over American consumers for decades to come.

Consumers in America – who already pay more for Internet service than any First World country, and receive the slowest service for their money – will be seeing higher pricers with fewer choices from this far from Free-Market deal.

We are used to hearing about corrupt Russian business oligarchs who are friends of Dictator Putin who get the best deals and screw Russian citizens.

We are used to hearing about corrupt Chinese businessmen, all former Red Army generals who get cosy business deals thanks to connections with the Communist Party and ride those connections to $Billions of profits to be secreted away safely overseas.

Now we are becoming regularly treated to US corporations who use cheap, easily borrowed money to become larger or buy related businesses so they can completely control markets and product distribution, thereby reducing consumers to slaves to price rises, sloppy products and less choice.

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We in the US are wrapping up the most contentious presidential election in recent history. Yet, income inequality – the most important issue of the election – has not been mentioned since Bernie Sanders dropped out of the race.

And that is important.

The most recent economic theorists have determined that corporations use behavioral analysis to drive profits.

From this they have deduced: Ignorant, confused, distracted consumers are their ideal targets.

And that is what America is turning out. A nation of consumers with their faces stuffed into their smart phones. Unengaged. Essentially, suckers.

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Ford Motor Corp. recently announced they are moving all small car manufacturing down to Mexico. Why? “That’s what our consumers want!” Yes, that was what Henry Ford’s grandson actually said.

Apparently he forgot his grandfather started mass producing automobiles – and employing US workers – so that his workers and those like them could buy good affordable cars. Now, Ford wants consumers to buy big, gas guzzling trucks because that’s where Ford makes the biggest profit margins, so THAT’S what Ford will still produce in the US.

Corporate greed that shortsightedly kills the jobs and well-being of American workers where Ford sits back making millions for executives and stockholders.

There used to be a balance in American corporate boardrooms.

No more.

It’s strip the land – and workers – bare and take all that you can and leave nothing while filling your coffers with cash.

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All things are cyclical, including business practices. This rampant “Free-Market” – we’ll call it what it really is – “Rape-The-Consumer-Market” – might turn when American business schools, incubators of corporate leaders, start teaching methods that inculcate sustainable business practices.

We’ll see. It works in other countries where they place the good of the whole above No Good For Any. Go ahead: Study the world economics and see.

What you will discover is that America and its political climate where corporate money buys politicians and their votes is on a rapid downward spiral with the superwealthy taking a proverbial piss over the mass majority of Americans – and those Americans not even knowing enough to get their umbrellas out.

We suppose it must be because Donald Trump has declared open season on women that the NFL and its members have come out in full support of New York Giants kicker Josh Brown who has admitted repeatedly beating and abusing his wife over many years.

The Giants head coach Ben MacAdoo has consistently come out in support…of yes, the man inflicting the beatings on his wife! Kind of goes against those “family-friendly” commercials the NFL routinely runs during games picturing the league as a great influence for the home.

How about Giants owner John Mara? A billionaire with a say in all things football? Mara has said nothing but that he’s totally behind…Josh Brown, the big strong man who beats his wife!

And Josh Brown the wife beater has found he can count on all his Giants teammates as they have all come out in support of the wife beater.

Forget all those pink ribbons you see on NFL players on Sunday TV games – It’s a Big Fat Sham.

Actions speak louder than empty gestures and over and over the NFL has shown it consistently supports violence against women.

(The NFL came out so strong, gosh darn it, they suspended Brown for one game. One game.)

Then, well, the sh*t hit the fan. Or as regular NFL watchers call it: The facts of the case became known to the public and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell had to wake up and actually do something.

It’s notable that it was a British Broadcasting Network that hit Goodell up on the issue as in the United States of America it seems the media – sports and otherwise – has come to accept that the NFL is simply able to act as a criminal facilitating corporation focused on nothing but PROFITS rather than the well-being of its players or the victims of its players.